"You got some idea where you're going?" Leonard said.
"Of course," I said. "You know me. I never been lost, just—"
"A little bewildered. Save it, okay? I can tell. You got no idea where we are."
"It'll come back to me."
We went on down that main clay road and turned off on a few smaller ones that dead-ended against trees or the edge of the river. Some of the roads were so narrow we had to back our way out. Sometimes we had to back a long ways. Leonard loved that. He knew more foul words than I thought he knew, and I thought he knew plenty.
About high noon we were dipping down over a hill on the main road and there was a sudden sound like strained bowels letting loose, and the car started to slide right.
A blowout.
Leonard tried to turn in the direction of the skid, but the skid didn't care. The ice on those clay roads would not be denied. The right rear fender struck a sweetgum with a solid whack and my seat belt harness snatched at me and pulled me snug.
We got out.
The car wasn't banged too badly. I said, "I think it's an improvement."
"Remind me to knock a dent in your old truck when we get back, you like it so much."
"While you're changing the tire, I'm gonna look around. Looks kind of familiar around here."
"Now the place looks familiar. Got a tire to change, and you know the place like the back of your hand."
"I merely said it looks familiar. I'll be back."
"When?"
"About the time I figure you've got the tire changed."
It didn't look familiar to me at all, but hey, I hate changing tires and tires hate me. I know from all the bruised knuckles I've gotten over the years, all the quick moves I've acquired from avoiding slipping jacks.
My mechanical abilities are simple. I can air up a tire, put water in the radiator, check water in the battery, let water out of the radiator, check the oil and put it in, fill the tank with gas.
Beyond that, I'm an automotive moron.
I walked around a bit, hoping I'd stumble onto something familiar, but nope. I went back to the car and Leonard had the spare on, was jacking the car down.
"Been going well?" I said.
"Now I know why you hang around with a black guy. So in case you have a flat, you got someone can change the tire."
"It's your car."
"Your fault I'm down here."
"All right, you found me out. I like me a black fella to change tires."
"And chauffeur."
"That's right, and chauffeur. I think the ethnics should know their place."
"You so right, boss, and I is proud to serve you."
"Actually, I don't know how to break this to you, Leonard, but I only hang out with black guys when I can't find a Filipino."
"You tighten the bolts. You're not getting out of this scot-free."
He put the jack in the trunk and gave me the tire iron. While I was tightening the bolts, he said, "We could go home. Not even pick up our gear. Just drive out of here and forget all this business."
"We could," I said. I didn't want to admit it, since I was the one who got us into this, but I had been thinking pretty much the same.
"We could go to jail that money doesn't turn out to be the kind of money Howard says it is."
"If there is any money."
"Yeah, if there is any money."
"But there isn't a thing happening at the rose fields now, and I can't think of another line of work we could go into."
"There's always shit work," Leonard said. "It isn't like we're some kind of professionals."
I finished the bolts and put the tool in the trunk, positioned the ruined tire between the oxygen tanks and the diving suits, and closed up. "I leave it to you, Leonard. Whatever you want, that's fine by me."
He thought that over. "Really, any of this familiar to you?"
"I remember part of the road we came in on," I said. "Outside of that, I could be on Venus."
"That's not encouraging."
"No, it isn't."
He thought some more, said, "Tell you what. We'll give it, say, three days for you to start seeing if something's familiar. You see something you recognize, we'll go longer. We find the bridge, maybe we'll look a few days, we still feel like it. Don't come across the boat or signs of it pretty quick, we'll go home."
"Deal," I said.
Chapter 13
Just before dark we drove back to Marvel Creek, stopped at Bill's Kettle, had a hamburger, bought a six-pack of Lone Star at a cut-rate store, and started back to the Sixties Nest, as Leonard called it.
We found ourselves following the jaundice-yellow Volvo that lived in the yard of the Sixties Nest, and we pursued it to the house and parked behind it.
Howard got out of the car. We kept our seats and drank our beer, observed him like aliens examining an inferior species through the portal of a flying saucer.
He was wearing slightly greasy blue work clothes with a patch over the left shirt pocket. I couldn't tell from where I sat, but my bet was his name was stitched into the patch.
He looked at us a moment and went into the house.
"Looks to have been a tough day at the old job site," I said.
"I know it's got to be the same with you," Leonard said. "I can't make up my mind. Is it him or Chub I like best?"
"They both have a lot of charisma," I said.
We went inside. Paco was sitting on one of the fold-out chairs grinning his false teeth. Trudy was sitting on the couch. She had her legs and arms crossed. She looked as if she could crack walnuts with her asshole.
An unjustified strain of guilt went through me. I felt like a husband whose wife had just found rubbers in his wallet.
The guilt went away when Howard and Chub came into the room. Chub didn't bother me, really. He couldn't help being a jerk. But Howard was a self-made man in that department.
Chub went over to the couch and sat down. Howard crossed his arms and held his ground in the middle of the room and glared at us. His eyes roved a little to his right to check out his audience; the teacher was about to make an example of us.
I wanted desperately to knee him in the nuts.
"I thought there was an understanding that you were working with us," Howard said.
"We forget to punch the clock or something?" Leonard said.
"You don't want any part of what we are, but you said you wanted to do a job. There were things we had to do today, like go to straight jobs."
Leonard looked at me. "Straight jobs, Hap?"
"That's what they used to call square jobs, back in the beatnik days," I said.
"Ah," Leonard said.
''Straight is, relatively speaking, a sixties term, still popular today."
"Ah."
"I'm surprised you haven't heard it."
"I've been kind of outta step."
"It's not funny," Howard said. "Chub ran some errands for us. But you two, we had no idea where you were. There were things we needed to talk about this morning. Plans needed to be made. We were all about our business but you two."
"You didn't say what Paco was doing," I said.
Paco grinned even wider. Poor guy. In that face, the fine white teeth made him look a little bit like a sun-dried barracuda.
"I think he's playing favorites," Leonard said. "I hate that kind of thing."
"Paco has earned his keep in the past," Howard said. "I haven't seen what you two can do. But it smells like what you can do is drink beer."
"But can you tell how many we've had?" I said. "Smelling it from over there is good, but I want you to say how many we drank."
"And what brand," Leonard said.
"No use trying to talk to them when they're like this," Trudy said. "They'll go on until you get tired or mad. You can't reason with the fools."